How Cal Weathers Came to Be (How Lightning Learned How Friends Work)
by whipplefilter
Summary: Let's just say Cal's rookie season is one for the books. He's a good racer, but his press conferences... leave something to be desired. That's where Lightning comes in. A story about how Cal and Lightning first became friends.


_While Cars 3 was still in development, Cal's name was temporarily Hank. Here's a fic about how he came to be Cal! ;P_

* * *

Weathers is the only name they'll hear, anyway.

Signing with Dinoco only sealed the deal–no matter who's wearing that blue, it's his uncle The King that the stands will think of, and that'll be true a long time coming. His uncle had voiced his concerns about this, but Hank wasn't deterred. At the end of the day, only an idiot wouldn't sign with Dinoco. Besides, Hank doesn't mind terribly; to be quite honest, he's much the same, and he enjoys being reminded of his uncle at every turn. Those reminders are what lured him to the track in the first place.

And attention is daunting. Any time a reporter asks him a personal question–trivia about Hank Weathers the individual, and not #42 in Dinoco blue–he finds himself lying on impulse. His one great fear in the press circle is that someone will ask him a question and he will begin giving his honest answer, only for the blogger to realize halfway through that they are not interested. Did they really want to know about his ukelele covers of good ol' southern blues? No. Did they want to know about his trip to see Brick's plants? Certainly not. His real dream vacation? Hawai'i. That's boring, too. He needs sizzle. So he lies.

The problem is, he's not a good liar. Hank is, in fact, a laughably bad liar.

Once someone asks him what is favorite drink is, so he names the first blend that comes to mind. Later his agent tells him, "Come on, Weathers, that was a gimme! You're supposed to say Dinoco's new Night Blue formula. It's in your contract."

"How did you spend last weekend?" asks a blogger.

"A plane museum," says Hank, which is not only a lie, but an uninteresting one. Especially since the blogger then qualified, "I meant… what did you do last weekend to prepare for the race?"

During probably the third of these pre-race circuits, Hank ends up explaining that yes, he spent his summer in Peru, he's definitely ready for Fontana's heat.

The car adjacent–Lightning McQueen, Hank realizes–rolls closer and whispers, "Buddy, you gotta come up with something better. It's winter in Peru right now–southern hemisphere, remember?"

Hank gulps.

He's never been further south than the Deep South, but now the blogger's asking him about the culture in Peru.

"The beach there is nice. Very hot. Good waves," he says, woodenly.

Unfortunately, the blogger is a Cali girl through and through, and starts asking about the surf, and if Hank's being completely honest, the closest he's ever been to a beach is the tracks in Florida. Which are not the beach.

"Ladies, hate to break this off, but Dinoco here's gotta go hang four," McQueen cuts in, wandering into Hank's bubble of personal space as he directs him toward the front gates. Together they wander away from the press and suddenly he and Lightning McQueen are on a freeway, miles away from the track.

McQueen asks about The King, of course. Seems genuinely interested. Hank's never met McQueen in person before, outside of existing in vague proximity on the track together, though of course he knows about McQueen's own rookie season last year. What he'd done for his uncle. Beyond the story, though, Hank's never really thought about what McQueen would be like in person. He's nice enough.

Can't remember Hank's name worth a darn, though. He asks once, flubs it twice, then just starts calling him Dinoco. Again, it's only to be expected, what with the paint and the uncle and the racing career. It's all good.

"Uh, where are we going?" Hank asks, after they hit the 40-mile mark. And when McQueen shouts back _To the beach!_ Hank feels compelled to yelp, "Wait, I thought you realized- I thought we were clear- I don't-! actually-! surf-!"

"But you've never been to the beach before," says McQueen, as though this were some kind of explanation.

In that moment, the highway crests over the dunes, and down toward the horizon Hank catches sight of the vast blue expanse of the ocean, 101 snaking along its edge, choppy waters glinting like nothing he's ever seen before.

When they get down to the water, Hank beelines it straight for the waves. He loves the cold shock of it, the frantic way the water spins out of his fenders and slaps dark splatters onto the dry sand. He loves its riptide tug against his body, like the spinning force of your top speed around a turn, but thick and heavy and comforting. He yelps and shouts and when he attempts to bodysurf a low wave it ploughs his nose grill-first into the sand so deep he has to tug to right himself again.

McQueen is watching him from a good 50 yards back.

"Aren't you gonna come in? We drove all this way," asks Hank.

McQueen backs up even further, mumbles some crap excuse about not liking salt water, or cold water, or wet water. Water in general.

"I'm, uh, just gonna stay on this part," he says. "But you have fun!"

Hank, dripping, drives back onto the beach. "If you're afraid of getting in the ocean, why did we even come here?"

"Because you'd never been," McQueen says simply. "And I feel like we gotta see what's out there, you know?"

So while Hank teaches himself how to bodysurf-sort of-McQueen does absolutely nothing but sit on the dry sand, safely away from the waves, and not a single thing Hank says or does can compel him to even dip a tire in.

They make their way back inland before dark, McQueen bearing the unfortunate attentions of a flock of seagulls and Hank itchy with sand and salt everywhere. They're almost friends, except McQueen still doesn't know his name. Again, Hank is fine with that, at least generally speaking. It's what he'd expect from the press, from competitors.

But how do you spend a whole day at the beach together and not remember someone's name? It's just not courteous and it's not how Hank was raised and it's hard for him to get past his feeling that McQueen's a bit standoffish, which sours the experience.

'Standoffish' doesn't add up, though, given how they came to be at the beach in the first place. McQueen didn't have to save him from the press, or spend his day like that. And later, when Hank sees McQueen with his friends, he doesn't act like that. It's like in McQueen's world there's work and there's play and they do not intersect.

Except, Hank thinks, when you end up at the beach. At which point the enigma comes full circle.

It's Hank who starts the prank wars.

Water balloons, ice buckets, rubber sea creatures-it's a whole production. One time, Hank accidentally slaps another racer with a soaking fish-shaped sponge, and that's how Bobby gets involved.

One day, they become friends.

It's a specific day, because Hank watches the realization dawn slowly on McQueen's face, like the fact is rocking his entire worldview. It's like McQueen never thought he'd make new friends, or that friends were even a thing you could make on the track, and not just back home.

It's a specific day, because it marks Hank's first-ever win, and suddenly the dull roar of press and attention and interest escalates into a full-blown hurricane and Hank is right in the middle of it.

"Call me Cal," Cal says, to the onslaught of reporters calling for Mr. Weathers, Strip Jr., Number 42, and Dinoco.

They all start shouting, "Cal!"

Cal for California. Cal for the beach he loved. Cal for the feel of the Pacific around him-the memory of the surf as he blew past that checkered flag as though he were a wave himself.

A week later at Kansas, far from any coast, McQueen rolls up with a big smile on his face.

He says, "Hey, Cal!"


End file.
